Waiting:A Tale

Waiting: a tale

Rain is a stranger here.

A few drops, desultory

and lost fall to be soaked by

arid earth. Mottles of dust

rise. A mirage of a winged

angel sitting on the rails

quiver. Forsaken rails to

no station. That means they are

mobile forever. They change

existences, characters,

destinations, passengers.

The angel always sits in

a wait for screaming and shouting

children to come for a game

of rails and trains. Their own

timetables have stopped to become

unchanged, unbothered, dead

eternally. Barred from being

adult ever. They will be

flocking in any time soon

The mirage of an angel waits.

Somebody has to wait for

them who have become nobodies.

Ask an angel, she knows what

it is like. Time has made angels

nobodies too.

© 2008 - All Rights Reserved Kushal Poddar

Reviews

[R J Askew]

Marvellous bit of word conjuring...I could see the dust, rails and lonely angel. And the wistfulness of childhoot, travel and change...with the rails seeming to symbolise life, all rush at times, but in the case of this poem's mood, a feeling of waiting but going nowhere. Enjoyed this very much. The images you call up are called up in a gentle fashion and seem very real.

[alternative_be]

Reading this poem made me sad, it really touched me...
It made me think about about villages in the Sahel countries. The angel is a great but saddening metaphor for all the children that have died due to starvation. The angel is left behind to guard what is left of the village... though the cause is doomed, he remains, even though the inhabitants have all died and are left with no body...
Ad angels barred from being (or becoming) adult ever!

[Bhavya Kaushik]

The imagery in it is simply awesome and rarely have I ever been through any poem like this with such a brilliant and great imagery. Your words created such a vivid picture in my mind while I was reading them!
Yet this is sad but a very powerful piece of writing.

[Emily B]

I don't think I've ever seen it described in such a way before. Understated, yet so powerful, I didn't see where the trains went until it was too late. Angel nobodies and lost children on the road to nowhere. Amazing stuff.

[Broken.]

Wow I have to admit this was sad but so indescribably beautiful.
I love the lines
"A mirage of a wingedangel sitting on the rails quiver. Forsaken rails to no station. That means they are mobile forever. They change existences, characters, destinations, passengers."

I love the way those lines roll over each other , surely in my opinion the most in depth lines throughout.
Well done

[DeeWV]

This poem speaks to me of the devastation of abandoment and carries a sad, but true
message. (time has made angels nobodies too) love this line.

DeeWV

[Poeticpiers]

intriguing piece of poetic prose Leaves me wondering what inspired this It evoked a mental image for me of a dead landscape evastated by drought deserted by the the population with only rusting ribbons of railway lines to shoe what had once been a busy place